Apple announces new MacBooks and more at WWDC 2012

Posted 12 June 2012 - 02:18 PM

Ed

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Apple's highly anticipated WWDC 2012 began yesterday afternoon in San Francisco. Apple’s CEO Tim Cook delivered a keynote speech highlighting what the company has been working on recently. Quite a few things have been said so we present you the summary of the main announcements from WWDC 2012.

Mountain Lion, the newest version of Mac OS X gets a July release with new features including AirPlay Mirroring, in addition to Game Centre from iOS, stronger integration with iCloud for sharing and storing content, and a new Messages app to replace iChat. Plus there will be an app for Reminders and Notes. More excitingly, it will include the voice-to-text Dictation function from the current iPad. The price will be around $30 and will be available for downloaded and installed directly from the Mac App Store.

Coming later in the year is iOS 6 with more than 200 new features for the iPhone and iPad. However, owners of the original iPad won’t be able to download it as the device will not be able to support it, but the iPhone 3GS will.

Apple's star product was undoubtedly their next generation MacBook Pro, which features a Retina display and, according to Time Cook, it pushes the limits of performance and portability like no other notebook, being the most advanced Mac that Apple has ever built. It drops legacy technologies such as ethernet and the DVD drive in favour of are thinner, sleeker form factor, being as thin as Apple's ultra-portable MacBook Airs. New feature "Power Nap" can keeps the new MacBook Pro updated even when it is asleep, so once awake you’ll find new emails, reminders, photos and documents all there ready to go to.

With the iPad becoming increasingly popular with Apple's users, it was revealed that following the release of iPhone 4S, iOS 6 will ensure that Apple’s intelligent personal assistant Siri is also available on the iPad. Sticking with iOS 6, Facebook gets to be built-in across the board, much like Twitter in iOS 5 and is weaved into various aspects of Mountain Lion, allowing you to post updates and pictures and links from different apps and programs with just a click. iCloud gets more advanced and updated version, and in iOS 6 it brings a Shared Photo Stream to create different picture libraries updated instantly as soon as you snap a shot on your iPhone or iPad.

Apple bids goodbye to Google maps with their new mapping app which will feature turn-by-turn navigation and amazing 3D Flyover birds-eye views. It also includes real-time traffic information that can be read out by Siri, who can even suggest an alternative route or give ideas for nearby places to stop, shop, eat and fill up with fuel. However, some of the coolest features such as Flyover and turn-by-turn navigation will only be available on iPhone 4S and iPad 2 or later models, leaving the iPhone 4 and first-generation iPad out-to-dry.

The MacBook Air models received an update with new 3rd generation Intel "Ivy Bridge" processors that are considerably faster than the previous version. The new Air will also offer up to 512GB of flash storage via a solid state hard drive, which means lightning-quick access to programs and other features making the new MacBook Air twice as fast as the previous model, plus they will come with a pair of USB 3.0 ports and capacity for up to 8GB of RAM. In terms of prices, they start from US$1000 for the base 11in model and all the way up to US$1500 for the top end 13in model.

Apple also quietly updated its AirPort Express base station whose specs include simultaneous 2.4- and 5-GHz bands, support for legacy 802.11 b and g devices, a 10/100 Fast Ethernet WAN port and a 10/100 Fast Ethernet LAN port. The new AirPort Express retains the one USB 2.0 port supporting a printer, suitable for laser printers, as well as a 3.5-mm audio minijack for analogue or optical digital sound, but loses it's handy plug-in-the-wall form factor.

As was expected, quite a few things have been revealed from Apple at WWDC2012, but with no news on the Mac Pro can we expect to ever seen an update to Apple's only tower computer, or is it about to meet the end of its days?

Posted 25 June 2012 - 10:43 AM

TheNavigator

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I guess it's time to admit that Apple offers awesome services for its users. It's true that apple's too much secret, but they already invented a lot of things that they were the first people to offer, and I guess that's worth the money they ask us for.

Posted 26 June 2012 - 09:56 AM

they already invented a lot of things that they were the first people to offer.

And what exactly have apple 'invented' rather than re-hashed, re-branded, often stolen, and brought to the masses?

The mouse? Stolen from Xerox and given diagonal movementGUI? Xerox againThe dock? AcornMiller columns? Mark Miller, used in Project Xanadu, Datapoint, and NeXTApp store? Steve Jobs originally slated Nokia for their app store. Ubuntu and many Linux distros had a similar thing long before mobile devices had app stores.Multi touch? Windows table had it long before the first iPod touches/iPhones and Fingerworks had many products on the market in 2005 when the first apple multitouch device was introduced.Thinnest laptop in the world? The Mitsubishi Pedion, released in 1998, was 18mm thick throughout, whereas the MacBook Air was 19mm thick at its widest point. Because the Air tapered to an incredibly thin 4mm, Jobs claimed it was now the thinnest.The tablet? The first true tablet was the GRiD Pad, launched in 1989.Video calling? Don't be silly, I had this on a Nokia back in 2003 and that worked over 3G.mp3 players? The first ever portable music player was a prototype, built in 1979 and only capable of holding three minutes of audio, but there were plenty of others to make it to market before Apple launched the first iPod in 2001.Internal aerial on the iPhone? Stolen from Nokia and after the resulting lawsuit settled out of court.

Ok 2 things Apple have invented is the dock connector on the iPod/iPhone/iPad and the mini-disply port.

Posted 26 June 2012 - 09:16 PM

And what exactly have apple 'invented' rather than re-hashed, re-branded, often stolen, and brought to the masses?

The mouse? Stolen from Xerox and given diagonal movementGUI? Xerox againThe dock? AcornMiller columns? Mark Miller, used in Project Xanadu, Datapoint, and NeXTApp store? Steve Jobs originally slated Nokia for their app store. Ubuntu and many Linux distros had a similar thing long before mobile devices had app stores.Multi touch? Windows table had it long before the first iPod touches/iPhones and Fingerworks had many products on the market in 2005 when the first apple multitouch device was introduced.Thinnest laptop in the world? The Mitsubishi Pedion, released in 1998, was 18mm thick throughout, whereas the MacBook Air was 19mm thick at its widest point. Because the Air tapered to an incredibly thin 4mm, Jobs claimed it was now the thinnest.The tablet? The first true tablet was the GRiD Pad, launched in 1989.Video calling? Don't be silly, I had this on a Nokia back in 2003 and that worked over 3G.mp3 players? The first ever portable music player was a prototype, built in 1979 and only capable of holding three minutes of audio, but there were plenty of others to make it to market before Apple launched the first iPod in 2001.Internal aerial on the iPhone? Stolen from Nokia and after the resulting lawsuit settled out of court.

Ok 2 things Apple have invented is the dock connector on the iPod/iPhone/iPad and the mini-disply port.

Let's be honest. They invented how the multi-touch system. It's true that Windows Tablets had so, but the same quality? Nah.

They invented extreme high resolutions and they made a new theory that enabled using extreme high resolutions. Elevating of pixels system.

They were even the best people to make computers long time ago.

Take a look at Siri. I never found a voice recognition system that awesome.

I'm not saying that because of something, but I've worked with quite different systems. Starting with AVR micro-controllers, Linux and windows servers, LEGO, and much other systems. The most awesome and inspired one of all of them, and the most one that had extreme work put it, was Macs OS and computers. Although some people that work with me at software development and graphics designing don't think the same way, but for me I think that's the best thing to work with. They even presented Xcode to developers who want to use what they used, which I rate as the best IDE ever made up till now.

I'm not saying that they invented everything they did, but what they did is worth it. They took information straight from the brains of their superb engineers directly into their products without giving it to anyone, which makes them really awesome and unique, which is bad on the other hand. Stuff needs to be a little open-source.

Posted 13 July 2012 - 07:10 PM

Let's be honest. They invented how the multi-touch system. It's true that Windows Tablets had so, but the same quality? Nah.

Multi-touch technology began in 1982, when the University of Toronto's Input Research Group developed the first human-input multi-touch system.Let's be honest...apple really did not 'invent' multitouch!

They invented extreme high resolutions and they made a new theory that enabled using extreme high resolutions. Elevating of pixels system.

How many screens have apple invented...Samsung and LG actually produce the screens for apple.

Take a look at Siri. I never found a voice recognition system that awesome.

They even presented Xcode to developers who want to use what they used, which I rate as the best IDE ever made up till now

XCode is a dog...fact.I have never used such a buggy IDE before.I can't think of one occurence when Visual Studio has just unexpectedly quit on me, XCode does this routinely.

I'm not saying that they invented everything they did, but what they did is worth it.

The point is that you said

It's true that apple's too much secret, but they already invented a lot of things that they were the first people to offer

But they didn't really invent anything and that's the point I'm arguing.They took existing technology, put it in a pretty box and sold it for an extortionate amount.

They took information straight from the brains of their superb engineers directly into their products without giving it to anyone,

you mean the people that wrote BSD and UNIX?

You which makes them really awesome and unique, which is bad on the other hand.

They are a company that has somehow managed to avoid the legal issues Microsoft encountered, i.e. The whole issue surrounding the anti-competitive nature of bundling IE with Windows.I would say their legal department is pretty awsome!

Stuff needs to be a little open-source.

But if it was open source everyone could see where they nick their ideas from!

You need to think about it again.

Do I? I accept apple have brought alot to the masses, but they didn't invent any of it!

Posted 14 July 2012 - 12:01 AM

eep357

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The Mitsubishi Pedion had a port multiplier that attached to the underside like a docking station, making it 3 times thicker if you wanted to get any functionality out of it. Still impressive for it's day though. BASF's (a chemical company like Dow and 3m) advertising slogan is "we don't make many of the products you buy, we make many of the products you buy better". Call that invention, or innovation, or stealing, or whatever you want, but I like stuff thats better and if Apple makes a product that is better than the attempts that came before it and convinces me I want it because it's shiny and new-good enough for me. At what point does an idea become an invention anyway? Should the estate of Gene Roddenberry be suing Apple because he invented the iPad, or H.G. Wells for just about everything else that gets "invented", or is anything really invented at all or is it just discovered instead? Like discovering a way to take things that already exist, like aluminum, glass and silicon and arrange them in such away that they run OSX? Nothing new there, aluminum and silicon have been around for like 11 billion years already. Really the only time I care who thought of of something first is if I'm owed some royalty checks, which I think I am cause I think of stuff ALL the time, sometimes when I'm not even awake!

Posted 14 July 2012 - 12:09 AM

I agree. Though Apple doesn't "invent" anything, it makes things better. I hardly heard of an MP3 player before the iPod, or a tablet before the iPad. All the computers I've used apart from my hackintosh have been Apple products, and all of them work to this day (very, very, very well, from the '95 Performa 638CD to the Grape '99 iMac to the '06 white "pizza box" iMac and black MacBook) and still look pretty. That's pretty good IMO.

And besides, the "invention" thing is kind of a moot point, because as eep pointed out everything uses silicon, glass, aluminum etc. that have been on the earth as long as we have.

Posted 14 July 2012 - 01:21 PM

eep357

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I agree. Though Apple doesn't "invent" anything, it makes things better. I hardly heard of an MP3 player before the iPod, or a tablet before the iPad. All the computers I've used apart from my hackintosh have been Apple products, and all of them work to this day (very, very, very well, from the '95 Performa 638CD to the Grape '99 iMac to the '06 white "pizza box" iMac and black MacBook) and still look pretty. That's pretty good IMO.

And besides, the "invention" thing is kind of a moot point, because as eep pointed out everything uses silicon, glass, aluminum etc. that have been on the earth as long as we have.

Grape iMac FTW! I remember back in 99 using mine to download from Napster before it got shut down, had a old IBM thinkpad with 10gb HD running Winamp I'd transfer some too, then hooked it up in the car to my stereo, the real first portable mp3 player! Wait a minute...I just realized I invented the portable mp3 player, where's my check!?